Unless otherwise indicated herein, the materials described in this section are not prior art to the claims in the present application and are not admitted to be prior art by inclusion in this section.
Around the world, emergency services have one or more dedicated emergency telephone numbers reserved for critical emergency calls. The United States has structured a “9-1-1” emergency system for the safety of its citizens. The 9-1-1 emergency system was created to report incidents that are emergency-type situations by using telephones, either wired or wireless. As such, a person, who may be in distress, can place a call to the emergency telephone number 9-1-1 to report an emergency situation, such as an accident, illness, assault, etc.
The 9-1-1 call links the caller to a public emergency dispatch center, also referred to as a public safety answering point (PSAP) by the telecommunication industry, in the vicinity of the caller. At the PSAP, a trained emergency dispatcher can assess the nature of the emergency based on information provided by the caller, in order to determine what kind of assistance to offer, which emergency services or law enforcement personnel to summon to the source of the call, or what other services to provide.
As stated, a 9-1-1 call requires that the caller provides information in person during the phone call to enable the trained emergency dispatcher to determine whether the caller is subject to an emergency. Hence, a need exits for a method and apparatus that allow a person to provide an emergency dispatcher, with or without a live discussion, information identifying the type of emergency that the person is experiencing.